Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 July 2024
105. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications to detail the installed capacity of renewables, by county, distinguishing the renewable source in each case. [29497/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Climate Action Plan 2024 seeks to transform Ireland into an international leader in the development and generation of high-quality renewable energy. The Plan includes a series of measures to support our renewables programme, including the accelerated delivery of onshore wind, solar, and offshore wind generation, to reach 80% of electricity demand being met by renewable sources by 2030 and beyond. The 2030 energy targets for renewable electricity include 9 GW of onshore wind, 8 GW of solar, and at least 5 GW of offshore wind.
Ireland has made considerable progress in decarbonising our electricity sector and currently has over 6 GW of renewable generation. This is split between over 4.8 GW of onshore wind, over 1 GW of solar (over 400 MW of rooftop domestic and circa 645 MW of grid-scale), and the remainder coming from hydro, biomass, and other small sources of renewable generation. It is expected that there will be further strong progress in 2024 and 2025 in the deployment of wind and solar generation.
An Accelerating Renewable Electricity Taskforce has been established to accelerate the deployment of onshore renewable electricity generation by focusing on the three key pillars of renewables development – Route to Market, Grid Development and Planning.
To facilitate the accelerated roll-out and implementation of renewable electricity infrastructure for onshore wind and solar generation and to achieve the national targets set out in the CAP, regional renewable electricity targets will be included in the upcoming revision of the National Planning Framework.
The Regional Development Monitor (RDM) Hub provides a series of new national mapping and visualisation infrastructures including Wind Energy Capacity, Number of windfarms, and Renewable Energy Share (RES) by sector. This can be filtered per Region or County. geohive.ie/pages/our-green-sustainable-future#LowCarbon2
Additionally, various Renewable Data Reports are available on:
EirGrids website: www.eirgrid.ie/grid/system-and-renewable-data-reports
and ESB Networks website: www.esbnetworks.ie/new-connections/generator-connections-group/generator-statistics
